Blank Slate
by Rish Tor
Summary: Sam doesn't remember leaving the scene. He doesn't remember going home. And he certainly doesn't remember how he ended up in the middle of this forest. One Wrong Move post-ep. Shadows Within series.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This began as a weird little plot bunny following One Wrong Move._

 _It may have grown a little bit. So, without further ado, welcome to the world of Shadows Within._

 _This may be the first written for my little world, but it won't be the first in chronological order of the series, so stick around if you see something you like. Enjoy!_

* * *

He doesn't remember leaving the scene.

He doesn't remember making it home.

He doesn't remember making it to the forest outside the city.

(It's going to be a bitch to figure out where the hell he parked his car.)

The last thing he remembers clearly is seeing Lou's body being battered and thrown by the explosion and the wild keen of grief that had torn its way from Spike's throat.

(He'd heard sounds like that before; they still haunted his nightmares, along with flashes of sand, blood and agony that radiates from his soul. Hell, he's made those sounds before.)

Somewhere amongst the haze, comes the distinct impression of all-consuming rage; someone had taken part of his family away from him, killed a member of his pack. Snuffed out Lou's life like it meant nothing.

And that couldn't stand, not in Sam's eyes and not in the eyes of the darkness that prowled within him.

But there was nothing for him to hunt, no one for him to kill in retaliation for the attack that stripped away yet another person he loved. Which left no outlet for that searing anger and desperation, leaving it to boil beneath his skin.

This wasn't supposed to happen; land mines were a thing of the sands, an unknown terror that plagued every patrol, forced every footfall to become unreasonably nerve wracking. This wasn't supposed to happen here, not in this city, not to this team; _they were supposed to be safe. This family was supposed to be safe._

(The irony isn't lost on him; he knows that this is an unreasonable wish, but it's not as though he can stop himself. The SRU faces dangers every single day, be it guns to bombs and everything in between. But he thought he had left the unpredictable nature of the desert behind and this time, things would be better.)

The next thing Sam knows is he is on all fours, breath heaving through over taxed lungs as he hurtles his body through the trees. The slam back into full consciousness is disorienting, to say the least, and Sam trips over a fallen log he doesn't notice until he's flat on his face past it. Fallen leaves scatter in a fiery burst of colour in all directions as his heavy form takes up residency on the forest floor.

Sound and smell rushes back next, a cacophony of chirps, twigs breaking and the breaths of various animals all-trundling through his over sensitive hearing like a freight train. Thousands of little scent trails seem to light up in his brain, a barrage of prey and possibilities. For a brief second, he's paralyzed; simply overwhelmed by the sudden transition from the blank state he'd been in to the vibrant explosion of life.

(The last time Sam had lost control of the beast to this extent, he'd been back in the sands. He'd come to, wounded and surrounded by the bodies of his fallen pack. It had taken him six days to both find his way back to base and pull together his tattered sanity in order to stay human.)

Ever so slowly, his heart calms and he regains control of his senses. Tucking his paws beneath him, a quick twitch of his pelt later and he flips onto his back and closes his eyes. Quickly, he takes stock of his body and there's a jolt when the scent of blood registers strongly in his nose.

Eyes snapping open, he surges to his paws and growls softly when he notes his muzzle is streaked red with dried blood. Shaking his head with an angry snort, he rubs away the stains against his forepaws. Still caught in the tail end of panic from his abrupt return to reality, it takes a minute to place the blood as rabbit.

(Once before, it wasn't rabbit. Once before, it wasn't just one member of his pack being ripped from his soul.)

Finally, he stills, muzzle relatively clean and sanity mostly held in check, and stands tall in the midst of the sun-dappled trees. The thick black fur that covers his body twitches with each bunching of powerful muscles and he shifts his weight between his forepaws, the right a gleaming blaze of snow-white fur. His shoulders fell easily above waist height of the average male human, nose capable of reaching the chin without trouble.

(Werewolf wasn't the term he liked to use, but it was fitting. Personally, Sam preferred just calling himself a human with a mild anger management problem that occasionally took the form of a very large, furry wolf.)

Shaking viciously, Sam sheds the leaf litter that's attached itself to his fur and allows is tongue to loll free from powerful jaws. Still breathing heavily from running only God knows how many kilometers for God knows how long, Sam begins to flick his ears this way and that, hunting for some sound that will guide him back into civilization.

Tipping his head back, he catches a glimpse of sunlight through the branches and determines that it's still relatively early morning, meaning he can hopefully make it back to the city before the afternoon.

(That is, unless he hasn't stuck to the pattern of woods he normally runs. Then he's just screwed.)

Swirling at the back of his mind is a maelstrom of emotions, ranging from embarrassment for this loss of control and time to grief pulsating sickeningly through his bones. For a moment, his vision wavers as the wave of feelings threatens to crash over him, finally unleashed after being trapped within the beast. But he locks it down, using every scrap of compartmentalization skill he possesses, and gives his head another quick shake to clear away the last of the fog.

He doesn't have time right now to deal with anything but getting himself back to the city.

(It's a struggle for him to drop his muzzle from the sky; tipped up, Sam can feel a howl of grief fighting to get free. But now is no longer the time for the wolf to mourn, but the man.

And the man has to get the hell out of these woods.)

After several minutes of being unable to pick up any sounds indicating his location in relation to the city, Sam's lets out an explosive sigh of exasperation and lets his instincts take over. He sets out at a light trot, giving a flicker of attention to the presence in his head leading the way, until he begins to feel confident in the path his paws were taking.

And that's when he starts to run. Huge loping strides eating up meter after meter of earth, claws digging into the dirt and leaves and sending clumps flying. Muscles bunch and contract beneath that gleaming coat of fur and, just for an instant, Sam is able to forget everything but the feel of wind on his muzzle and power in his limbs.

(But moments don't last forever, and eventually, he finds himself back at his car, stumbling into clothes he doesn't remember hiding in a trash bag beneath the roots of a tree just out of sight from the road.)

He unlocks his car with mechanical movements and spares a glance at the cell phone on the passenger seat. The amount of missed calls

( _12 from Jules, 8 from Parker, 6 from Ed, 3 from Wordy and 1 from Spike_ )

missed texts

( _23 from Jules, 17 from Wordy, 8 from Ed and 2 from Parker. None from Spike_ )

and voicemails

( _4 from Jules, 2 from Ed and Parker respectively, 1 from Wordy. None from Spike_ )

don't surprise him. What does is the date.

It had been two days since the explosion.

And he still didn't remember a single clear second of it.


	2. Chapter 2

Ignoring the myriad of alerts on his phone, Sam shifts uncomfortably in his skin, flesh still raw and tingling from the change back to human. As he settles into the driver's seat and fires up the engine, he winces at the sound, senses still on overdrive, and he has to close his eyes and force the lingering bits of wolf into the vault in his mind.

(His phone buzzes once again, bringing the total of missed texts to twenty-four for Jules and three from Parker. Sam merely twitches at the sound, still focused on locking away the creature that shares his soul.)

(What he doesn't know is that the team are about an hour away from filing a missing persons report on him; the lack of response from their former army team member is causing an array of fear throughout Team One.)

Taking a few more steadying breaths, Sam finally blinks his eyes open and feels the wolf settle, albeit grudgingly.

The beast is far from soothed, rage and fear and grief and loss combining to create a dangerous mix, but at the moment, it is too exhausted to put up a fight for control. The rumble of the engine helps; a steady drone of noise and vibrations as he sits in park is enough of a distraction.

As he checks the mirrors and glances about the stretch of abandoned road he'd parked on, he catches a glimpse of himself in the rear-view. The sight is enough to send a bolt of disgust through him; his chin is streaked with dried blood, thin smears of rust red that cling to the scruff of his beard. There are twigs and leaves trapped in the disarray of his hair and his eyes appear more animal than human, wild and dangerous. His clothes are a state, the garbage bag he stored them in has done little to protect them from the elements, grey shirt smeared with forest dirt and there's a small tear across his left collar bone. His jeans haven't fared much better; they're muddy and wet in patches and there's a small rock stuck to the knee in the dried mud.

Scrubbing at the caked on blood with his palm, his stomach roils in clear disagreement with whatever bits of the rabbit still remain inside. Bile burns at the back of his throat and he snarls quietly, unwilling to throw up what little remains in his stomach. Sam clenches his teeth against the wave of nausea that arises when his attempts to scrub away the blood sends the smell of copper and death straight up his nose. With it comes flickers of memories, tinted colours his human eyes can't comprehend.

(Howling his grief to the night sky, limbs trembling with the need to exact his vengeance on the thing that took away a member of his pack, a restless sleep beneath the stars.)

Groaning with the effort to shove the sporadic and dizzying memories away, Sam hunches over and presses his head heavily against the steering wheel. The pressure helps him focus, but it's still another few minutes before he feels able to drive. When he finally eases the vehicle into drive, his phone begins to vibrate across the seat, accompanied by the chimes of a phone call.

Face twisting into a grimace, he reaches over and picks up the device, setting the gearshift back into park as he does.

 _Ed_ _Lane,_ the call display says and Sam thumbs it on silent.

There's a thunderstorm of grief in his chest, growing stronger the longer he remains human. As much as he would like to bury himself back in the beast, he can't and he's already swamped with shame at losing control in such a dramatic fashion. He hasn't lost his grip on the thing that shares his skin in years –

( _blood stained sands, growls of rage and terror, mingling with the sounds of screams and gunfire, still doesn't know how he survived_ )

\- and knowing he not only let the wolf out, but also lost two days, two days when he should have been with his team, causes guilt to chew bites out of his heart.

Instead of answering the numerous alerts on his phone, Sam dials one of the ten numbers he knows by heart and calls Spike.

" _Yeah_ ," Spike mumbles as an answer after four rings, voice hoarse and devoid of emotion.

"Hey Spike, it's Sam," Sam says with a voice nearly as rough as his teammates, coughing a little as he does.

" _Sam? Where the hell have you been_?" Something accusing and hurt fills Spike's tone and it magnifies Sam's guilt tenfold.

Pinching the bridge of his nose and letting his head fall back against the headrest, Sam closes his eyes and sighs. "If I could remember, I'd tell you," he answers after a long pause.

The accusation grows, " _have you been drunk_?"

Laughing sadly, Sam latches onto the plausible excuse, "sure. Something like that."

Genuine worry creeps in the strange, not quite confirmation, " _buddy, where are you? We've been trying to find you for two days; I think Jules' is about to file a missing persons report on you_ ," Spike tells him quietly.

"I'm fine; I'm headed home now so there's no need to file a report," Sam answers without answering.

" _Dude, we thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere_ ," Spike fires back, the accusation flooding in in full force. " _Why the hell didn't you tell someone where you were going_?"

"Didn't exactly expect it to happen Spike," Sam tries to placate, but he's tired to his bones and has no way of putting anything behind his words.

" _Sam, you can't just disappear, not after_ -" Spike starts, and Sam snaps under the weight of guilt, confession flying out before he can stop it.

"I thought when I left the army, I would stop seeing my friends explode in front of me," Sam hisses. "So, forgive me for going to a bad place and needing some time. Fuck." Sam punches the dashboard to emphasize his point.

For a long time, the only thing the two officers can hear is each other's breathing.

Abruptly, Spike speaks up, emotionless one again. " _Are you coming to the funeral tomorrow_?"

Sam's insides feel scraped raw

"Yeah Spike, I'll be there," Sam answers as razors drag once again at his heart.

" _Okay. Call Jules to let her know you're not dead_ ," Spike returns with one last jibe, before he hangs up.

Sam doesn't call, instead he sends a text message to the rest of the team stating simply

 _I'm fine, sorry I was out of contact, I'll be back soon._

To the one he sends to Jules, he adds an extra _I'm sorry._

Then flicks his phone onto silent and tosses it onto the passenger seat, where it lights up like a Christmas tree mere seconds after he hit send on the texts.

(The drive back to the city is long and filled with the taste of death lurking on the back of his tongue and the silence of tortured thoughts.)


	3. Chapter 3

The taste of death lurks at the back of his throat as Sam makes the drive back to the city and there's a brief internal war waged with himself as he passes a rest stop on the side of the highway. There's a raging need to wash away the flavor of blood and flesh, even with terrible gas station coffee, but it only takes a glance in the rear-view mirror for the idea to be quashed.

He looks half-mad, or maybe full mad, given the rust-red streaks smeared down his throat, the dirt covering his clothes and skin, and the wild look in his eyes.

Sam imagines the first person to see him would call 9-1-1 in a heartbeat, and that's a complication he doesn't need.

Instead, he sighs deeply and lets the station fly by.

Driving the rest of the way in silence, broken only by the sporadic chirps of his phone that continues to signal, Sam eventually navigates his way back to his apartment and pulls his vehicle into the sub-level parking lot below his building. As he turns off the engine and his heightened hearing rings in the sudden quiet, the beast the shares his mind pokes its awareness into theirs.

 _Grief_

Snarling, lips twisting into an expression that doesn't belong on human features, Sam shoves the presence away and locks it down.

Shaken and worried by the strength in which the wolf had expressed itself, Sam snatches up the phone that has finally gone silent, battery dead, and surges out of his vehicle. The bundle of emotions rolling in his chest has him moving quickly through the echoing parking area, by-passing the elevator in favor of the stairs.

( _no one takes the stairs these days, except for Sara in 4-C, the newly minted lawyer with a fear for small spaces, something she confessed to him the day maintenance had closed the stairwell to fix a crack in a weight bearing beam, and she'd been forced to take the elevator, babbling to him and Joshua of 3-A, the mechanic who carries the taste of oil and metal around him like a blanket, and the lovely Gretchen of 4-B, who bakes cookies when her grandchildren come over and fills the building with the tantalizing scent, the entire time in order to maintain a control of her fear; but Sam had tasted it, thick and heavy in his nose and on his tongue, a test of control that he'd passed with flying colours, but he doubts he could now, not with all of his nerves and emotions careening into chaos; god he needs food, and sleep, and maybe a liter of alcohol_ )

On autopilot, he lets himself into his apartment, head tucked low on the off chance someone else on his floor might be coming or going in the next few seconds. When the door opens, the relief that swamps him is terrifying. He slides inside, and lets his himself flop back against the closed door, eyes closed, letting himself finally ride the wave that being back in his home gives him.

It doesn't last for long.

Taking a deep breath, his senses stretch out, slow, dragging, and obtuse after the rollercoaster of the morning, and his gaze snaps open when she registers.

( _strong, overpowering, everywhere_ )

Jules stares at him from where she's frozen in the middle of his living room.

"Did you break into my apartment?" Sam asks, his voice rasping around the death still clinging to his throat, harsh and tired. Anger tries to surface, but it's drowned out by the ever-present grief and sadness that has taken up residence in his chest.

( _the wolf, that bastard, the fucker is all but oozing a strange type of joy_ )

Jules blinks, worry and fear taking over her features as she takes in his sorry state, and it's enough to push Sam into movement, not bothering to wait for an answer.

"I-" Jules starts, trailing off as the gears in her head almost grind audibly as she tries to sort out what she wants to say, and Sam just heads for the corner cupboard, dropping his keys on the counter as he passes. Reaching in, he snags the open bottle of whiskey and screws off the top, taking a deep swig straight from the bottle and relishing the burn the cheap alcohol provides as it slides down his throat.

"What the hell Sam?" Jules eventually settles on, eyes wide on him, focusing primarily on the dried blood on his face and throat. She sounds scared. A tilt of his head brings her racing heartbeat into focus.

Ignoring the mishmash of sensations that fire up at that, he takes another deep swig, one, two, three swallows, before he has to stop and take a breath.

( _how badly he wasn't to wrap around her, bury his face in her neck, her scent, her, and sleep. how terrible it is he can't_ )

"What do you want Jules?" Sam asks, tired. Too tired to drum up enough energy to actually care, not when he just wants to lick his wounds in private and douse them with the rest of the whiskey. He doesn't wait in the kitchen for an answer though, instead heads towards the bathroom with the bottle dangling from his fingertips and the other hand already dragging at his dirty clothing. He gets the shirt off with ease, shuffling the alcohol between hands as he walks, and taking another drink as the stinking fabric hits the ground.

( _lou's dead, lou's dead, lou's dead_ )

( _he can't think past it. can't find his way out of this spiral, not while the explosion is only hours old for the human, fresh and raw_ )

"Where have you been Sam?" Jules demands, anger blooming to life alongside her fear. "You've been missing for two days; I was about to file a missing person report," she fires at him, all spite and digging barbs.

They slide off his back like water over a duck.

He can sense her following as he moves into the bathroom, feels the hesitation when he shucks his pants where he stands and the shock when his underwear follows, and turns on the shower.

Turning, Sam studies her with one eye as he takes yet another drink, sees the new wave of shock register at his muddied body.

"Spike told me," is all he offers, waiting for the water to heat up behind him. "But clearly I'm not missing."

That's enough to wipe away the shock, annoyance jumping to life and Jules frowns at him. Caught up in her own emotions, she overlooks his nakedness and stalks into the bathroom to jab at his chest.

"Samuel Braddock, where the hell have you been?" she reiterates, emphasizing her point with another jab at his chest.

( _she won't admit, not even to herself, the helplessness and terror she felt watching Lou vanish before them, that same helplessness and terror amplifying tenfold when Sam had disappeared mere hours afterwards, and now the blonde sniper is standing before her, looking like he'd return to the war that had chewed him up and spat him out before, and she can't get a read on him_ )

"If only I knew," Sam responds with a low chuckle, black and bitter. Steam begins curling around their feet.

Anything Jules is about to say is caught in her throat.

"Now, I'm going to shower. And drink. A lot. You can keep yelling at me if you'd like," he offers, before stepping backwards and into the hot spray, taking another hearty swig that burns away the last lingering flavor of death. Setting the near empty bottle down on one of the ledges that line the shower, he turns, dismissive in movement, and ducks his head under the spray.

Jules is left uncertain.

Torn.

She can't get a read, but she sees a demon, a worrying darkness lurking in the shadows on Sam's face, and swallows away the terror fueled rage she's felt ever since she'd gotten that blasted text message from him.

Following her instincts, she shucks off her jacket and toes off her boots, letting them join with the dirty (bloody?) clothing Sam has abandoned. Something in her chest has hollowed out.

Not bothering with the rest of her clothes, she steps into the shower after Sam, back to the spray and sees how Sam jumps with surprise. As the heat and water soak through her shirt and jeans, she says nothing and draws Sam back when he backs toward the other end of the shower. Looking up to study him, the wild blue of his eyes blurred with confusion, grief, and what Jules suspects is the whiskey working its way through Sam's bloodstream.

She reaches up and gently draws his forehead down to press against her own, and feels something in him shake apart as they stand under the drenching water.


End file.
